David Davis' resignation - 11 comments

Call me wet behind the ears, but I've been surprised by the amount of hostility directed at David Davis, who (for the benefit of future readers) resigned today as Shadow Home Secretary - even from those who ought to agree with him in their opposition to the 42-day detention plan.

He's an MP, elected to support his party, and to express his own views, and the concerns of his constituents. Clearly he's already addressing points (1) and (2), and it's apparent that he's prompting a by-election to address point (3). Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Besides, elections are a Good Thing, and democracy has no price, so to talk of 'frivolity' and 'wastes of taxpayer's money' shows a grotesque attitude to democracy. It isn't a risk-free strategy either: seats only appear to be 'safe' until a remarkable independent candidate comes along and turns the election on its head; and as I keep saying, vote tallies start at zero and increment, they don't decrement - party majorities are no more that statistics.

If these initial reactions are anything to go by, Labour's big guns are going to take a depressingly contemptuous line. Take this, from David Blunkett:

David Davis's behaviour is a pure piece of political theatre [...] This is childish and immature and it is not worthy of a major political party to engage in such theatre.

As good an advertisement as I've heard not to enter party politics (if one were needed). Thanks, DB.

Equally tawdry, I feel, would be the decision not to field a Labour candidate at the forthcoming Haltemprice and Howden by-election. That would be a decision bound to salt the earth for the local CLP and the PPC, who might well pay the price at a local level for years to come. Whatever our individual views, Labour, nationally, has made its decision, and so it must stick up for its policy, whether that allows it to hold its vote, or costs it a deposit. The Lib Dems are entitled not to stand if they fully support the Conservatives, but Labour can't withdraw too, leaving one side of the argument/electorate with no (mainstream) representative.

Returning to the democratic point: needless to say, the 42-day plan doesn't cease to be illiberal or (probably) unnecessary even in the event that the electorate does back it (the interventions of the loathsome Kelvin McKenzie and Rupert Murdoch are surely proof enough - via Phil), but if some good is to come out of this affair, it would come from Davis and the Lib Dems eroding that apparent public support, and changing public attitudes for the better.

Don't, by any means, take that as an endorsement, but the task for Labour activists during this by-election is the same as it ever was: to battle illiberal and conservative ideas and values, with liberal, cooperative, and socialist ones. It would be a shame if, in doing so, we couldn't hope for a Labour MP to be elected.